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BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Illinois Wesleyan University graduate Geoffrey Grimm ’11 has been awarded the honor of best undergraduate paper at the Central States Anthropology Society (CSAS) conference, held in April at the University of Iowa’s Memorial Union in Iowa City, Iowa.

At the conference, Grimm presented a version of his senior honors thesis, “Masturbation Play and Word Games.” According to Professor of Anthropology Charles Springwood, Grimm’s advisor for both the senior honors and the conference paper, this is the first time an Illinois Wesleyan student has won a national or regional award in anthropology.

Founded in 1921, CSAS is a professional society that holds a meeting each spring welcoming cultural, physical and applied anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists and other interested scholars to present and discuss current ideas and research in the field. The CSAS Executive Board awards graduate and undergraduate paper prizes for papers presented at the conference.

Grimm, a Troy, Mich. native who majored in anthropology before graduating in May, is also a recent recipient of a Fulbright grant that will send him to Russia to teach for 10 months starting this fall. Upon his return, Grimm plans to attend graduate school and work toward a doctorate in linguistics.